f13.net

One of my favorite books and since they decided to rewrite JMS' script, which was supposedly fantastic, I've had a very bad feeling. The trailer is out and it's not looking good to me. Doesn't seem to be anything but action and they've changed the zeds to be runners.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/HcwTxRuq-uk

Edit by Trippy: embedded player friendly link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwTxRuq-uk

You mean there wasn't a thread ?

 :uhrr:

Wow, looks like shit.

All I know is that they were shooting this movie in the forested area right across from our office building. I think we saw some zombies shambling around, too - though it's hard to tell in Budapest. A++, would watch again.

Also, I bet this (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/12/us-pitt-weapons-odd-idUSTRE79A4NY20111012) story about the Hungarian ELITE ANTITERRIST SQUAD confiscating weapons from Pitt&Co will be more interesting than the movie!

On its own merits, it looks pretty interesting, and I've always liked Brad Pitt and never understood the hate.  As an adaption of the book?  Shite.

What.
The.
Fuck.
Was.
That?

How does that have ANYTHING to do with the book? Fast zombies? Oh fuck me. Fuck you Brad Pitt and fuck you Hollywood.
Fuck fuck fuck.


Fuck.


Now why don't you release a Ender's Game trailer with him shooting aliens with a laser gun to really ruin my day.

Even taken on it's on merit as a "using the name of" rather than a "adapted from", that trailer looks awful. I only read JMS's 2nd draft and it was fairly faithful to the tone of the book even if it played up allegorical parts a bit more but I get the impression that the story has changed beyond recognition now. I quite like Mike Carnahan's work but it's the Lindelof factor and constant reshoots that make me doubt this will be any good.

It's not that the zombies are fast, they are unrealistically fast. They look(likely intentionally) like a swarm of locusts but that is not was makes zombies scary at all.

I have not read the books. This does look epic, but as people have said, they say its not like the books at all. But, zombies like ants, rather interesting. Ants on meth that is. Its like the ragers from 28 days later, on meth!

Well someone was on meth when they made this movie, thats for sure.

I should add that in JMS script, he does explicitly mention a zombie as "moving fast" and describes the battle scene in the trailer (what should have been the Battle of Yonkers but was relocationed) as "the tide of Zombies washes over the defenders."  I guess as a lot of it seemed to be an allegory for Hurricane Katrina and the Bush government's response, that's unsurprising.

I get that, I mean on an intellectual level I get what they are doing with the zombies and I don't even disagree entirely that is could work but it's like they cranked the speed up just a notch too far such that they hardly seem like anything that was once human.   The basic horror in anything zombie related is that they are, or were human, it's their human qualities and the constant reminder of our own mortality which is the real scare.  Even in 48days zombies were scary because they reminded us of what we could become(drugs or psychosis whatever) the zombies weren't a stand-in for death but they were still an aspect of humanity that we feared.  Just going by the trailer these zombies just seem so...fake?

and it looks like Pitt's character is spending a fair bit of time with the Israeli army? aka the one country in the book that DOESN'T have a zombie problem?

Well, that's who I'd like to be with too.

"Hey, chaps, not having a problem ?  Can I come in ?"

Read the book.

Why do they not have a problem?


I have some of his other works.

Read the damn book.

 :grin:

I found the book to be... underwhelming and contrived.

Is it made clear that the people there were the zombies, or the people running away from the zombies? It was all a bit of a empty mess of a trailer.

I'd imagine it's all one and the same thing once the swarm catches up to you.

I haven't read the book, but will likely change that soon.  I've been meaning to read it for years, and it always falls off my radar.  However, like virtually every movie made from a book, I'll read the book and decide to never watch the movie because of what terribleness they've done in the movie trailer. 

Fast zombies are wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong. 

There are many things that make the zombie concept truly scary, but the core concept is the feeling of being overwhelmed by an opposing force.  Night of the Living Dead, the original.  Being trapped in a farmhouse, simply trying to barricade it fast enough, and failing.  That's what made it scary. 

The only good part of the War of the Worlds remake that Cruise did was the part when things get out of hand in the crowd of people and other people started taking their car.  It's that slow building meltdown to an  overwhelming situation that makes zombies scary. 

And this movie trailer looks like it misses the mark on that regard, to me at least.

If this movie was called anything other than 'World War Z' I'd have been pretty interested based on the trailer.

But that was not WWZ.

I'm calling zombie bullshit on that, you know?

They were fast in I Am Legend.

edit - I agree with what you are saying though, the super human aspects of zombieness should consist mostly of a total disregard for self harm combined with an insatiable hunger that drives their every thought.

They weren't zombies in I am Legend.

I just think that fast zombies are a different form of horror than slow zombies.

The fucking methed up zombies in this trailer look as if they don't even give you time to be scared.  They swarmed like a nuke, ffs, so what's the point of even running ?

I still think this whole idea of 'slow zombies just aren't a threat' is utter bullshit also.  It's about the confrontation of inevitable death in the same way as vampires are about sex.  Hell, 28 days later was more a vampire movie to me than a zombie move (and even more of a straightforward apocalypse movie.)

Though I will say that the Dawn of the Dead remake was ok, even for having fast ones.  I think mostly because it was about a seige, so speed wasn't that much of an advantage anyways.

This thread will now be all about rambling about zombies.  Also, how fucking obvious George Square looks in that trailer.

You guys posted while I was typing.

They were Vampires in I am Legend, in the same way 28 days later were vampires.

We need a new class of 'not dead infected chaps' which is what they REALLY were.

Ghouls? Liches?


Grunks?

Grunks works for me.

For the record, I am 100% OK with the way they were portrayed in both because they weren't zombies.  It's the Dawn of the Dead remake bullshit I can't stand.  Zombies climbing fences, running, climbing on a fucking parking garage ceiling.  Utter shit. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/03/dead_run.html

Ach, you can't argue for sense in a medium where the dead are walking (or running).  You just can't.

Sure, you can say which one you enjoy most, which is what I do, but you can't really say 'they're not zombies'.

They're dead folk reanimated in a mindless way.  Fast or slow, they're zombies.

I'm leaving this here because I think it's interesting even if I don't agree with it.

Simon Pegg rails against fast zombies in Charlie Brooker's Dead Set (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-dead-set)

Most relevant line really is "it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist."

But if we were to start debating the rules of the reality that does exist we would all become most depressed.

Also how can he call something a reality and then say it does not exist!

"Death is a disability not a superpower"

Well I guess that depends....

I thought the trailer was decent, but I have absolutely no attachment to the books.

Best part of that from Pegg


Really sums up why zombies should inspire dread, not just fear.

On the whole "slow zombies aren't a threat" thing. That's part of the point. A slow zombie isn't a threat, but there's never one slow zombie, there's dozens, and they just keep coming, and they never stop. They're easy to kill and you can rack up a body count in the hundreds or thousands, but it just takes one mistake, one time you don't look behind you, one time you trip over a root, and that's it. The slowness, the ease of escaping one or two--that just adds to the tension of the inevitability that eventually, we always fuck up just that once.

I laughed when I saw how the zombies were moving in the trailer.  It's like the zombie virus came from being bitten by rabid lemmings.

I dunno, I also liked the body in the stream... and the bit with the train.

Zombie tidal wave looked comical. I was reminded of that Indian Robot movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysbbPStfWw

The actual fighting machines were exactly as Wells imagined too :  They were great and genuinely scary.  The film itself was twisted shite though.

I thought the trailer looked good.  Never read the book, so I don't have built up nerd rage.

I was hoping the movie would be something in a sort of mockumentary style, assembling clips and interviews and footage from all around the world, rather than doing the standard narrative thing of following a single protagonist.

But I didn't think the odds were great that anyone would make a movie that was that different from a standard zombie movie, so I'm not as disappointed by that trailer as I might have been if I'd actually set high expectations.  It looks like a cookie-cutter dumb zombie action movie.  I generally like those.  Ehh.

Zombie discussion aside, my co-worker pointed out that they just look fake.  As though some bad cgi cartoon swarm that could at any moment turn into a giant fist or arrow.

It reminded me of the first mummy movie. CGI gone too far.

I'll just leave this here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un56JUEJ5lw

(Cracked video on why zombies make a shite villain.)

Rabies has a very long incubation period, and does not make you immortal.

No, being a Highlander does that.

 :why_so_serious:

Fast zombies are just scary monsters like werewolves or aliens, it is a completely different kind of horror.  Slow zombies are not scary, they are dumb slow mechanical easily avoided or dispatched, but they are everywhere.  You might escape from your house but the house next door is full of zombies too, make it out of the city and the next city is just as packed, go on a trek to another country and the next country is worse off than where you left.  Zombies are not supposed to be individually scary monsters, a world full of the fuckers is what is scary.  Fast zombies don't give you the feeling of dread and despair and hopelessness  of real zombies, they are just run of the mill scary monsters that chase and eat you.  Just look at that trailer, you could replace those zombies with giant ants or the aliens from starship troopers and it would be the same exact story.

You've clearly never read Chuck Palahniuk's Rant (http://www.amazon.com/Rant-Oral-Biography-Buster-Casey/dp/0307275833).

The book wasn't about zombies being slow or fast. It's almost entirely irrelevant.

It also wasn't a thriller, so whatever the film is its way off base, no matter the details.

I don't want to read the book, but I kinda want to see that film.  I thought rolling zombie snowball thing looked fun.

You meant to say looked dumb. I'll assume your posting from an Iphone and the autocorrect feature is being a bitch again.  :why_so_serious:

I read the book, and think the zombie snowball looks fun.   :why_so_serious:

Look, sad as it is, acknowledge that this movie is a zombie movie that just happens to share the same name as a book, and they have nothing to do with each other (like Starship Troopers).

Looks fun to me.  Seems they took a Left 4 Dead approach to the zombies, which I approve.  Could be horrible, but I'm always down for a big budget zombie film.

I would have sort of liked to have had film version of WWZ which always seemed to be more an interesting look at how we might actually react to a zombie apocalypse on a large scale told through individual lenses. There's a taste of that in 28 weeks later but it's a topic I think worked well in the book and isn't something anything really does tackle that's out. This looks like it approaches that sort of take in the same way the later Resident Evil films do and they really, really aren't what I'd think of as zombie films. Actually as people said, the zombies in this are a stand in for a force of nature and I get much more of a 'The Day After Tomorrow' or 2012 vibe from this than a zombie one. Which I guess does take the larger, global view of such an even but they've also followed the modern trend of disaster movies to make the film all about the visual spectacle. Of course maybe I'm misjudging it from the trailer but I'll be surprised if turns out very different.

All I got from this trailer is that zombies fall off of stuff a lot.

Phew! Totally relieved that Brad's family escaped NY.  Because we wouldn't want to have any kind of tension there.

It wasn't New York, it was George Square and, frankly, they'll probably go down to a heart attack at some point in the film merely from visiting.

 :why_so_serious:

They just want a decent cheesesteak.

Yea doesn't look like the book, but that's ok to me. After I, Robot and Starship Troopers, hard to hold Hollywood to any kind of account. And besides, for I, Robot, it's understandable. That was actually kind of a boring story, really for early sci-fi geeks. Flipside, Starship Troopers was actually a pretty good source for what could have been the actual Robocop-meets-Aliens2 kinda movie I had hoped to get. But regardless, both movies are forgetable and hopefully the decision makers felt the pain.

And you know what? I want a different kind of zombie movie. It's all the same shit going for horror in all the normal ways. Shambling zombies easy to take out at 80 yards while the real story is about a bunch of survivalists in a desicated land? The horror actually being about other people or stupid poor-planning situations? Been there and so very done that I can live the rest of my life never needing to see it again.

The wave of zombies toppling the barrier? THAT was scary. The growing mound of zombies exhibiting hive mind behavior climbing that wall? THAT was scary. Those appear to try and capture the "the old ways just ain't gonna work no more" feel the military went through.

I also have no idea the time span of the trailer.

Finally, I can appreciate that to make a summer blockbuster sellable they need to attach a big name to it, so being a montage of different individual accounts in a documentary format, well, you call Ken Burns for that :awesome_for_real:

You know what would be even scarier? If they were dinosaur zombies. That shot littler dinosaur zombies out of their mouths.

I'm going to chip in once again with the surprise shock that I liked I Robot.  Despite the fact that I probably shouldn't have.

I liked it on it's own merits, and it didn't take a smelly shit on the book, like Starship Troopers did.

Yea, to be clear, I really didn't hate I, Robot. I just think it's a great example of something that had no business using the same name as the book, because except for the throwaway Three Laws line, there was really no similarity. Even Starship Troopers was closer to source, even if it missed almost everything good about how the story was told. These are far more "offenders to source" than LoTR movies for example. Sure there were some tweaks, but it was far closer than it needed by Hollywood standards.

I almost want to try and make that  :grin:

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the fucking Converse that were placed into every shot of the movie.  Brand placement can suck my balls, and it's one of the multitude of reasons that movies suck today.

Starship Troopers is great.

I dunno. There was the plot where the computer wanted to control humanity for it's own good, that's out of the book, the conflict between obeying the laws and not reacting as a human would, like when the robot saved Wil Smith's character instead of the girl, and the part where he tested the runaway robot by giving a command and then damaging the robots in the crowd, a rather simplified version of a test out of the books. There was lots of stuff about the laws in there. The biggest difference (IMO) is that the book was a series of short stories featuring logic puzzles that arose from the 3 laws setup, while the movie was an action story. So instead of constructing an elaborate robot-testing-contraption, Wil Smith's character would just pull out a gun and shoot a robot to see if they would flinch.  :awesome_for_real:
But at least the core concept is there. Not so in Starship Troopers which was Paul Verhoeeven bitching about how facist and mean the military is, while the book was more realistic  :grin: in it's portrayal of the mentality of military life. And LOTR was just too silly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DvBE7Vt7Vg) at times for me to consider it a decent adaptation of the books.

Anybody who didn't like the starship troopers movie is a BAD PERSON!

And you're singling out I Robot for that ?

Name me a single movie in the last 10 years that didn't have that shit.

Seriously, I can't understand those dissing the film and praising the book (Troopers).

The film is enjoyable and watchable, and no matter how blunt or shallow its political message, it is better than the book's one.

The novel is a rather thin pamphlet (supposedly written within two weeks, to be used in an argument) and reads like a manifesto. It literally consists of 1 chapter action and story (quite entertaining) follow by a chapter of political background on how in a post-war society government broke down and some returning ex-veterans started stringing people up. And that’s how the military government came to begin. Followed by another chapter of story and action. Follow by more blah about how civilians don't really have any 'teeth in the game' in a society and don't 'get it' like military dudes too. Hilarious that part were military government gets justified by saying the civilians one all failed, of course all that in the made up alternative history of the novel.

Ok, so I really need to know: What do people actually like about the Starship Troopers movie? Put aside the book for a sec. I thought the movie was bad as a movie itself. Things were too convenient, everything was just too damned clean (I hate that from all early CGI movies, but here everything was too clean, looked like Halo level of clean), it was all b-level performances, and all of the fun Verhoeven schtick from Robocop felt too pat and antiseptic/clean here. I saw this movie all of once and still crinch when I hear "would you like to learn more".

Is there some pulp appeal I'm missing?

Back on the book, I did enjoy the story. But part of that might be that it was the only Heinlein book I ever managed to finish.

Obviously.

It is a B-grade film, but a satire of the "yay war!" style film full of very good looking people getting slaughtered. Their entire society is pro-war and propaganda focused, meaning they can't see the issue that perhaps if they stayed away from the Bugs, they'd probably could co-exist (but no - the Bugs killed some humans, so let's kill'em all!).

But it is a love it or hate it film. Either you buy into the satire and laugh at SS Doogie Howser, or instead sit aroudn wondering why the humans just didn't use better military tactics.

Verhoeven was a boy during WWII living in the Netherlands and lived through the bombings, seeing houses destroyed and dead bodies being moved around, plus a lot of German military outfits. I believe he's said in the past that he's amazed how pro-war some people he's met in the US are. "Starship Troopers" is coming from those kind of sources.

It's all about insulation.  You chaps don't even see the bodies anymore.

I get where he's coming from.

It's "disrespectful" to show all the coffins en masse before the families can trundle them off to be single units we can dismiss as, "Oh, how sad, but  (s)he was a soldier after all." before flipping over to the evening's entertainment. 

Quite.  But beyond this point we enter the forum Which Must Not Be Named.

I liked it as a satire of jingoistic pro-war movies, exaggerated to riduculous extremes.

My friends and I totally did this in the theater when it came out.  Lots of cutting up about Doogie.  Hence I actually enjoyed the film, but mostly because it was a fun overall experience rather than any particular great piece of cinema.

Dizzy.  That's about it.

I think that's the break. It is for me anyway. I really liked Robocop, but Verhoeven's extremes rub me the wrong way in his other movies. Especially ST, which I found to be on the more stupid side of the stupid action movie scale. Great soundtrack, and Denise Richards is easy on the eyes, as usual, but the rest is too daft to have any fun watching it.
Again, IMO.

Putting aside my feelings about the twisting of the book, if they do a good job of showing the war in a global context I may enjoy this movie. Always been my biggest want when watching a zombie movie..I want to know more than just whats happening to our intrepid band of survivors in the shopping mall..I want to see what the rest of the world is doing.
I had looked forward to 28 weeks later, but then spent a good portion of the movie critiqueing their zombie defence. So weak!

Yea that is the part of WWZ I hope they include. As I mentioned, I've had enough of the "survivors, the later years". I want to see the phase as society is crumbling and the governments are adapting.

Ok, I can see that. He pulled that sort of critique way better in Robocop though. There was real grit, realistic corporate shenanigans if you buy into that future (which decades later I totally can see happening), a real disregard for human life we already all see, and a "force for hope" that had a real sordid origin. It all held together well, and still holds up.

This is why I really don't know howST went so off the rails for me. I think it was just too much smiling. I can appreciate the subject matter of period pieces and wanting to tell the story of desensitization. But the way the story was told was just too clean. Same problem I had with Avatar, which covered some of the same concepts.

Honestly, my bucket of movies I've actually watched in the past 10 years is a whole lot smaller simply because of that shit.  I Robot was one of the most memorable instances because of how blatant it was. 

I know it's everywhere; that's the one I remember the most. 

I, Robot's sin was writing the brand placement into the script. Everyone remembers Converse because there was an entire "character development" scene devoted to taking delivery of a new pair of Converse.

ST is meant to be clean. It's not gritty anything. It basic b movie fodder. Like Fifth Element, but with satire instead of schmaltz.

I actually prefer it when they do that.  It's like the bit in Waynes World with the Pizza.  You can laugh and move on.

Yes, except Fifth Element was a movie you saw because of casting whereas ST you saw because of the book. Similar to I, Robot, without the title having come from an established brand, very few people would have bothered to see it, and nobody would remember it.

ST missed the mark because what people wanted to see was simply not depicted. Heck, Fifth Element was a better Verhoeven movie than ST if one was looking for kinda-fun-but-cynical futuristic Robocop-esque send up.

I really doubt that. I'd say people who watched it because they are Heinlein fans are a very small minority.

I know we are in a nerd corner of the world, but most people who watched ST would have had no idea about the book.

I've never read it myself either, tbh.

Wuh? Generic aliens space movies with the most recognizable actors being b-level at the time, and people saw it just because? I do not agree. At $120mm. worldwide gross was less than half of the Full Monty that year. Yea, sure, Titanic also that year, but also the gawdawful Air Force One and the afforementioned (and fantastic) Fifth Element all crushed ST.

I'm quite sure a lot more people have seen it since of course, Netflix and whatnot. But the only groups I remember even talking about this movie 15 years ago were those who either read the book, knew someone who read the book, or knew a guy who knew a guy who walked by the book at some point. And we by then had enough internet that I knew a lot more people than just the guys I was tossing Magic: The Gathering tables at  :awesome_for_real:

My college roommate saw this with a group of friends on opening weekend just because it was an action movie berift of other action movies on surrounding weekends.  It opened on Nov. 9, 1997.

It was also #1 its opening weekend with a 55% falloff it hit #2 the following weekend and #7 its 3rd.  http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-chart/daily/1997/11/09

It had a bigger opening weekend than Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which was #1 the week it was #7 and nearly tied Alien: Resurrection which opened the following week.   

Unless you're telling me that Heinlein fans outnumber folks who went to MK:A and also thronged to see A:R

I'm glad you're here to tell me why I went to see ST because I thought I went to see it because it was a) sci-fi action b) Highlander Bad Guys and c) Phil Tippett was involved in the SFX. I had no idea it was based on a book until the end of the film. Nobody I know went to see it because it was Heinlein - we went to see it because it looked cool. It was cool and I still love it as a film.

Also, comparing it to the Full Monty? :uhrr:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNhYJgDdCu4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faFuaYA-daw

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Wow forgot The Jackal was also 1997. Getting freakin' old.

I was telling Lamaros  :grin:

Only brought up Full Monty because of box office sales comparison for the year. Slightly different movie than ST.

Looks like I'm in the minority on this. That's cool. There's probably people who hate Hudson Hawk as much as I hated ST, but I rather enjoyed it.

After having seen what they did to The Puppet Masters, I was just glad that ST didn't completely suck.

--Dave

ST had a lot of 'big CGI movie' press too. We don't get that much anymore, but CGI was a bit of a novelty then IIRC.

Don't worry - I'm in the minority who hated Verhoeven's Total Recall.  :grin:  

EDIT: and that was nothing to do with whether or not it was like the story it was based on either.  I just thought it was cheap, tacky and stupid.

It was a sci-fi movie.  With only a little prompting that'll get me to watch any movie.  Back then it was a given.

It really is that simple for many of us.

With Dina Meyer. Can't leave that part off....

Yeah, everybody I went with had no idea it was a book (including me).  We just saw the trailer and all decided we wanted to go see the awesome looking action Sci-fi movie that had a hilariously bad name for some reason.

Its like welp, someone tossed a nuke from 200 light years away. Obviously someone in technical support just pressed the wrong button, no harm no foul  :why_so_serious:


My memory of the book is that its 2 chapters of action and nothing more. 50% of it was a love letter to basic training and life in the military, 45% of it was the dreaded political discussion, which most people shut their brain off the moment they read "military government" or "civilians don't have the right to vote".

Anyway the ST movie was dumb fun when I watched it a million years ago and for all intent and purposes not "that" bad as a movie adaption of a book. At least the movie tried to be its own animal. Unfortunately in respect to world war z i really, really don't want another shitty survivor story. Its "global" scope has to be translated into film or this is a bust.

I watched the movie when it came out because "hey, hot chicks and boobs", laughed at all the terrible, terrible jokes, and I didn't even know the book (or the book's author) existed until 1-2 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNhYJgDdCu4

/STthread

So I'm rereading this and it's still stellar.

I really wish they hadn't gone big budget with the movie and instead had a similar style/atmosphere as Waltz With Bashir:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylzO9vbEpPg

I think the so-called satire in the ST movie went over the heads of most moviegoers. The problem with satire is that it backfires a lot. For instance, I'm sure there's people who think Team America, World Police is a patriotic movie!  :ye_gods:

People who like puppets pooping on other puppets?

So, um, New Trailer  (http://youtu.be/4EC7P5WdUko) ?

Utter Shit ?

Ok.

WTF is that?   :ye_gods:

First comment I saw said "Brad Pitt and lots of tumbling people" which is pretty much all I got out of it.  Doesn't look interesting to me, no clue what is going on there.

HE NEEDS ANSWERS!

What the fuck.

Yes.

He should watch the trailer.  It's clear the immune kid is the answer.

Which is, in itself, an utter huge horking Pile of Bullshit.

Not going to see this anymore.  I'll just stay home and play Heart of the Swarm, or eat nachos.  One of the two.

Meh, it'll be over the top forgettable utter shit, but probably enjoyable for 2 hours.

That's where I'm at too. I haven't read the book, though it's on my list. But I figure it's like the Star Trek reboot, or the pending Star Wars one. As much as there might be source material I'd want faithfully adhere'd to: I'll take a more entertaining experience any day.

I just can't seem to get my panties in a twist about much of anything. Maybe I'm just too easily amused  :grin:

That assumes that zombies BOO YA HERE THEY ARE haven't been done to death already.

Why watch this when I can watch Dawn of the Dead again ?

Seriously ?  I was hoping for the world spanning story of how humanity reacts.  The zombies were just the hook.

Didn't the Simpsons already do this?  Obviously, killing the head vampire zombie cures all the others.

Still not happy with fast zombies in this franchise, but it looked better than the first trailer to me. The book is fundamentally a human book, so more personal stuff and less hordes that look like ants works for me.

I'd agree, except I haven't been able to sit through any of those. Sean of the Dead was fun, but only because I loved Hot Fuzz. And Walking Dead is of course awesome, but not because of the zombies. Are the 38 Days Later monsters considered zombies? I did like that one.

Anyway, I'm probably one of the targets for this movie: interested in an action flick, thinks the premise is interesting, kinda/sorta heard of the book but only because I travel places that have people who've read it, and it's timed for the summer blockbuster cycle when I'm in the mood for that kind of thing.

That's not to say it won't suck even to me. But my context is different from fans of the book.

But I get it: replace "World War Z" with "I, Robot" and I'm right there with most  :grin:

I Robot was actually a collection of stories, not a continuous book as such.

But then, I read the original book of "The Quiet Man" and nerd-ed out too. :D Oddly enough it also was a collection of stories where the Quiet Man himself only appeared in the last 2, and in the first one of those he was working as a servant.

Ok, WTF people.  There was nothing particularly bad about that trailer, especially if you got in any way excited about the first one.  It basically showed most of the same shit as the first trailer, but with a bit more plot and dialog.  I cannot fathom how you are suddenly jumping at that trailer being pure shit.....

Well, two things:

1 - The first trailer was shit.  Also, that's George Square.  It's obviously George Square.  I mean, what the fuck people, it's George Square.

2 - This one adds more mysterious retardery that's not so mysterious.

I didn't like the first trailer.  This still looks like shit.

I'll end up seeing the movie.  Will read the book after.  Wife already read the book.  Prediction:

Wife: :uhrr:
Me: :why_so_serious:

Fair enough.  I'm still looking forward to it, as it seems like a great  :popcorn: movie.

And I read the book!

And you know what ?  Running Zombies, pain in the arse, not a huge fan, but they're ok.

These locust tumbling sprinting zombies ?  Retarded.

I can see why, but I just don't like any of those swarm scenes I've seen.

I don't think I saw a single woman fighting in the trailer. Kind of a strange movie to go all conservative values, considering the book and all.

Oh god yes. I'm sick to death of zombies personally. I don't think the trailer was terrible (haven't read the book) but I don't think it was ZOMG AWESOME. It's a movie I'll watch on DVD and probably forget shortly after I watch it.

Well, what other monsters cam they use that haven't been done to death? Vampires?  :why_so_serious:

World War V would just be all coffee shops and emo though :grin:

Yes. Which makes it even more of a departure from "hey here's another Will Smith movie with a single lame narrative".

It's not really that they can't do zombies, it's that everything has fucking zombies in the last year or two. I'm getting zombie fatigue.

I've had zombie fatigue for two years now.  This upswing kicked-off with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies back in 2009 and it's been at a fever pitch since then.   

Doesn't help that Zombies are my least favorite monsters, ever.  A shambling corpse, even enmasse, isn't fearful if only because of decay. Add in other realities like carrion feeders and you've nothing to worry about after only a few days.  Which is why there's always convoluted reasons that all birds, cats, dogs and other animals also died.

There's many, many more interesting forms of undead, even if they're not well-known.  A good movie would then make as well-known as Night of the Living Dead did for zombies in'68.

Zombie fatigue would have been less of a problem had they not spent 6 years getting it scripted and filmed.

I like Brad Pitt, I like zombies.  I'll watch it and then complain about how it should have been better.

I went to the Star Trek Hilton ride in Vegas. It was really neat. The ride was on shocks so it would bank and buck when the shuttlepod thing flew around. The finale was the shuttle pod travelling back in time and flying over Vegas itself while shooting at a Klingon Bird of Prey.

This movie probably should be a 20 minute Vegas ride.

I find your honesty refreshing

So, it comes out this week.

http://www.worldwarzmovie.com/MegaTicket/

Now, there are many reasons to roll your eyes in general to this thing, but I think my "favorite" part is the "free small popcorn".

Well its 71% on Rotten tomatoes, which is a change from the 80% I was seeing earlier today (which isn't good).  The score overall bodes well, but I guess we'll see, since I assumed that if it was bad, it would be REALLY BAD.  Guess we'll know after its released world wide, but interested in seeing how everybody here views it.

Yeah, the studios are getting really clever at screening movies and lifting embargos. They know who to screen it for to maximize the early buzz. Same thing happened with Man of Steel (and more troubling to me, Monsters University).

I just got back from the theater. World War Z is actually quite a good zombie movie and gets at least a B+ there. It was entertaining, about the right length, and had a good mixture of plot, suspense, and action. I saw it in Real 3d and it was tastefully restrained. No reason to really push to see it that way that I can see though, but no reason not to unless you hate 3d.

There is a big caveat though. World War Z is not just one of my favorite books, but honestly, one of the best books I've ever read. Not just a zombie tale, but an intelligent and often times darkly humorous exploration of the political and bureaucratic inertia, modern materialist society, and the human reaction to adversity. Sadly, as an adaptation of the book World War Z, it gets an F. It just has nothing whatsoever to do with the book. Just nothing. There's one scene from the book whatsoever. The Israeli Mossad agent's talk. That's it. I want an adaptation of the book and I want it yesterday--preferably as an HBO mini-series.

I'm with you on the book stuff. For that reason, I won't pay to see this shit. Personally, I hope it's a loser and knocks Bradley down a couple pegs.

This, the book was never going to work as a movie.

Movie is getting 'oh this is surprisingly not totally crappy' reviews.

I didn't know Lindlehof was involved though....

This. Might watch it when it hits Netflix in a year or so, but I refuse to pay for an awful adaptation. If you want to make a generic zombie movie, make a generic zombie move (hai2u I Am Legend).

It's a PG-13 rated zombie movie.

Really, it's a good generic zombie movie.

I've seen it. PG-13 rated zombie movie is about as succinct a review as I can give.

You know my only real problem with this movie?  The title. 

As a generic zombie film with a world view twist I rather enjoyed it. I'm still holding out hope for a tv spin off 'tales from world war z'

Oh and I say there needs to be an Oscar category for chattering teeth guy.  :why_so_serious:

A decent zombie movie.  A bad World War Z movie.

I appreciate this movie for making me read the book, very much enjoyed it, and realised immediately it would become an action movie in the hands of hollywood which I can do without.

The book is slow, pretentious and overly political. It is a good read, but if the movie is "pretty good" then I'd put them about on par - even if it is in entirely different ways.

Just like any movie, there was no way book people would like it.

Friend got back from it, she liked the VFX, thought the ending was terrible.

The book was good because the it was looking backward, from multiple viewpoints, on a global scale pandemic. The focus is on the collapse of the complex human structures we depend on rather than the zombies.

... another zombie action movie? If it's about grabbing your guns and defending yourself I'd rather play it as a game, and that's already been done.

I agree, and as a book person, I'm starting to wonder why Hollywood even bothers licensing IPs only to deviate so strongly from them. It's either arrogance in thinking that the new Vision is superior to the original, or a shameless bait and switch. If you don't expect book readers to actually enjoy the movie, why bother paying for the rights?

Most likely they do it just for the name. 

Even by Hollywood standards this sticks out as really throwing the whole book out. It's not taking liberties, it's just nothing whatsoever from the book. I mean, the main character in the movie isn't even in the book. This isn't "omg no Tom Bombadil." This is "omg no hobbits, Gandalf, or a ring." I think only the James Bond movies have such a disconnect from the book and they don't even pretend they're adapting anything.

Still, it's one of the better zombie movies in a while and I enjoyed it. In some ways it may have been more enjoyable because you didn't have to think about what they did to the book because they just tossed it out.

I remember an argument that it's because the people who give the go-ahead are very risk averse. Which is also a function of how much money is going to be spent of course. So if you can say, "It was a hit book with a lot of public interest" it's a safe bet as compared to "we're going to make another zombie movie the public knows nothing about" not so much. Same reason most of the big budget games are iterations on a franchise.

The idea that they dumped the script that got them approval immediately after getting the go ahead just means they were more transparent than usual.

Yes.  While parts of the book are decent, it's basically wrapped around a fairly partisan (and completely fuck-stupid) political message.  The writing is also exceptionally juvenile, though most zombie works from Romero on to Mira Grant suffer from the same issue.


The book didn't have multiple viewpoints, or focus on the collapse of human structures.  The book had the classic zombie apocalypse Act II problem (credit to GRR Martin) while also sounding like one guy badly writing multiple viewpoints.

TBH, I thought the Stand did a much better job of taking shots at the government and overall breakdown of society in a apocalypse, and that didn't have zombies in it.

Then again, it's not hard to point out that human society and governments are short-sighted, badly run, assholes. Plato pointed it out over 2,000 years ago several times.

Oh good, glad you jumped in. Stoped me having to type as much.

Especially agree on the "one guy badly writing multiple viewpints". It aspired to be "one guy reporting multiple viewpoints" but never ever got close to achieving such a thing; it was extremely limited in scope and expression given its aims.

 :facepalm:

Just watched it, thought it was pretty good for a zombie movie.  The way the zombie's swarmed and climbed over each other reminded me of footage I have seen of mice plagues.

What he said.

Steven Spielberg's Jaws (the movie) deviated pretty significantly from Peter Benchley's Jaws (the book).

Some might say (me for example) that the movie is a significant improvement over the book.  :awesome_for_real:  :why_so_serious:

Reserving judgement over the zombie movie until I get around to seeing it. I have the book on iPad, read the first chapter - it's a fascinating read.

I would disagree with that though.

Think Jaws and the main character in the film is Chrissie Watkins (the girl who gets munched at the start) brother, who's a famous big game hunter and goes out with the navy seal team to kill the shark. That's how off WWZ is from the book.

Since I work for a small resort towns government, I have a huge appreciation of how much they "got it" about how things work and the vast resources we have at our disposal. Our old harbor master looked and acted like Quint and One of the retired Selectmen is a spot on double physically and temperamentally for the mayor. Great movie and a really good blurry conversion fwiw.

I have to say I'd appreciate the movie more if it wasn't called World War Z, but you know whatever Hollywood.

I think what saved this movie was not being rated R. At least I'm wasn't treated to the site of idiots in a zombie movie being torn apart for 30 minuites. It blew past fast and forgettable and ultimately left a good taste in my mouth.

For those who are wondering what the movie got right or wrong compared to the source material

Good points all, but I still liked it. I just want WWZ. But hey, I've wanted Logan's Run since I was still "blue," so oh well.

It may be heresy but I found the circumstances of the zombie virus, how it spread , fast zombies ( sometimes) etc actually a lot more plausible than even the book (and I loved the book).  I could never quite reconcile how a plague could spread that widely from slow zombies with a disease that took several days to incubate. (Never mind don't zombies eat their victims?  Which ones do they eat and not eat?)

I shall now wait for the zombie gods to strike me down.

In the books a critical mass of zombies eat their victims. Mostly because their victims are overwhelmed. Normal victims get away, think their fine, and start interacting with the population, spreading the disease unintentionally, I.E sharing the same tooth brush, having sex, even organ transplants, and then finally start showing symptoms in most cases they end up attacking love ones who think their son/daughter wife/husband contracted a really bad flu. Worst case scenario they turn in a hospital, turning the entire place into ground zero for an outbreak. The point being the infection was initially really slow and got faster over time (think really long time and after jumping several continents). General ignorance, government propaganda or straight up lies (China refused to admit that zombies existed period), and third world governments who lacked the resources to spread information fast enough or to deal with the situation quick enough. There was also initial or perceived success against the zombie plague during the start of the war, every first world nation sent their rainbow six teams to quickly deal with the zombies, making the general populace really ignorant and complacent (there was an asshole selling a new rabies vaccine as a cure for zombie bites and possible infection) , which allowed the plague to spread along the east coast silently and with little fuss.   

Pretty much what MH said.  A lot of Americans With Guns think the whole thing is utter bullshit, mostly because they're Americans With Guns, but I find it entirely plausible.

Watch this film (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/) and then imagine that the disease also spreads by mobile victims that are also extremely hard to kill.  The point about the Zombie Virus in most Zombie stories is that there is an incubation period, as well as Extreme Psychological Impact for the Victims and Soon to Be Victims.

This is why I find 'fast' zombies just to be bollocks.  If you look at a film like 28 days later, it's clear that they had to give it a precisely ZERO incubation period because if it had any, the world was over.  I mean, totally and utterly doomed.  Fast Zombies or Psychos would just destroy everything.  It'd be like indestructible locust clouds.

Anyway, we've done this before so I'll shut up.

Not really. Fast zombies would never be allowed to reach critical mass. It would literally be too hard to contain and to hide, even the local cops would notice and the general public will overreact. For one a fast zombie wouldn't let his victims get away. I.E contact with the virus from infected would result in being torn apart. Less chances of the victim caring the virus without showing symptoms because the victim would be ripped apart. Lack of stealth. Slow zombies sound easier to deal with, but they also don't make a lot of noise. You can infect an entire apartment building with very few people knowing the wiser, until its too late. In which case a fast zombie will be all over the internet, #guy on pcp won't die, #omg woman eating bf face literally. Sure if fast zombies reach critical mass, we're fucked but they also make too much noise for us not to notice.

No.

I think fast zombie spread in 28 days where it starts with a patient zero and spreads extremly quickly and easily, but only up to physical borders is pretty reasonable. Also because it wasn't just the active infected, but also just their remains that could cause an infection.

WW-Z the book makes sense because it spreads extremely slowly. It starts in rural China, in regions without strong government control and with poor public health, but it takes months for even them to begin to notice it. Then it spreads outside the country largely through smuggling and at first only takes hold in similar third world countries. As per wikipedia it's 7 years between infection and the Aircraft Carrier Saratoga conference and even then there are lots of areas holding out, including entire countries. That seems reasonable and I think the methods Brooks lays out seem like a logical way things could spread.

Fast zombies breaking out worldwide all within the same as per the movie seems very unrealistic. It was still a fun movie though.

Fast zombies aren't zombies. They don't represent any of the things that the zombie concept have. Fast zombie movies have always elicited more of a "getting chased by a pack of wolves" feeling than anything else.

That aside, fast infection zombies just don't work as far as spreading very well. Any sort of vehicle that would let it spread faster than walking speed would be over run and crash in a fireball in about half an hour.

This surprised me how much I enjoyed it. If it was called ANYTHING but World War Z, it would have taken my single biggest complaint away.

I started calling it Apocalypse: Zed and it worked out for me.

The book is one of my all time favorites and I managed to enjoy the film.

I saw the movie the other night. It was pretty enjoyable.

I agree; book lovers should just imagine the name of the movie as "Apocalypse: ZED, starring Brad Pitt", not "World War Z by Max Brooks."

This is not so much spoilery as the background on the making of the movie.
I have read about the original ending for the movie, big chunks of it already being filmed before the execs (and probably Brad Pitt) knew that it would not have worked.

I have read about the original ending for the movie, big chunks of it already being filmed before the execs (and probably Brad Pitt) knew that it would not have worked.

Not to be confused with the original original ending which

 

I'm totally JMS' bitch, but it's a very good script. The sad part to me is that Pitt can pull that kind of thing off and I wish he'd tried.

Finaly saw this.


This is pretty much how I feel about the movie.  WWZ is my favourite audio book of all time, maybe some day I will have time to read the original.

I was suprised how well fast "zombies" worked in the movie. The teeth clacking did send shivers down my spine. Now excuse me while I make sure nobody and nothing is hiding in my closet.

I just read the book.  It was interesting, but the interview format removed a lot of the drama for me.  I will see this movie when it hits Netflix.

I liked the book because it covered the "world going to shit" part, most zombie stories skip that.  Big reason i liked The Stand also.  But yeah, not a whole lot of drama when the story is being told by survivors.

That's not really why I read it though.  It wasn't really about that.  For me anyway.  And I hope others.

This. I liked seeing the zombie apocalypse actually happen on a broad scale; the story of a plucky band of survivors on the run has been done to death, but there hasn't been a lot of big picture zombie fiction.

Screen Junkies: "Honest World War Z Trailer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2cS5Fv5xIQ

They produce some great stuff, and I think they hit the nail square on the head with this one.

That was awesome. wtf Matthew Fox?

Yeah, that pretty much nailed it for me.

I've never read the books, and I'm often a pretty easy mark for zombie stuff.

I finally watched it lats night. One of the most boring movies I've seen in awhile. The plot had absolutely no tension, and was just a series of setpieces.

Ignore the last sentencei n my previous post.  That Screen Junkies trailer killed it, especially the scrolling list of things from the book that were not in the movie.

Can't tell if they're idiots or really couldn't tell it was Pepsi at the end.

Anyway, it was watchably stupid. But then, zombies and Brad Pitt - which was the entire idea anyway. I expected it to be Resident Evil 2 levels of unwatchable - but it wasn't. Because, uh, Brad Pitt.

(edit: I didn't actually like the book all that much, so there's no sacred cow here for me)

Are you drunk or is your sarcasm impaired?

Neither. It was a crappy joke. Being subtle about wanting a Pepsi would've been funnier, and I assume these are trying to be funny. I've never seen Screen Junkies before though. Is sarcasm as a fallback mechanism for comedy their modus operandi?

I took it as "man, that product placement is so disgusting, it makes me want their main competitor". So, yeah, I guess sarcasm.

This is on Netflix now if you were curious.

As many have said, it's okay as a dumb zombie/disaster movie.

Saw it on HBO and started somewhere around the supermarket scene.  I couldn't get through his first sortie where the scientist dies without going, "this is goddamn stupid," and turning it off. 

More power to those who could.